


Waif

by foxtail_lavender



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Coming of Age, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Queer Themes, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 09:00:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29773761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxtail_lavender/pseuds/foxtail_lavender
Summary: Times change, wheels turn, worlds crumble. Some people slog on through it all. There was a time Vista wore her heart on her sleeve. Now half the world wears their organs on the outside, and the survivors are left to suffer in silence. But maybe, new stories can begin after the end.
Relationships: Missy Biron | Vista/Aisha Laborn | Imp
Comments: 6
Kudos: 22





	1. A garden in every childhood

🕶️🕶️🕶️

Vista remembers a quiet windowsill in the western wing of her mom’s house growing up. It was a musty old thing, beaten down by years of cold raining and humid summer stewing. There was a spider and a tiny little web in the corner, she remembers that too. Most especially, she recalls the shaft of orangish-yellow light that would fall across it every evening.

She went there a lot, that sunny window at her parents’ house, before the split. The sharp angle of golden glow against the chipped white paint is burned into her brain. Maybe that’s why her power lets her smudge around the world like clay. Because of that retreat.

That house is the furthest thing from a haven these days. _If_ it’s even still standing, Vista muses with a hint of grim humor. She’s willing to bet it went under the same time most of the world did, two years ago now.

At least a bit of Boston still breathes.

Most cities aren’t safe anymore. Perhaps there was a time when humans found security and comfort in their huddled masses, but that’s just a liability now. Vista had a front row seat to the Graceland disaster. She’d watched the mustered forces turn gray and grasping. These days, she can go weeks without even approaching a populated area.

But there’s a countdown to even this strangled existence. Vista’s seen it now. Adapt or die, isn’t that something people used to say? Now those two come hand in hand, only the order is flipped the wrong way round. Adapting isn’t enough. What matters is weathering.

Boston has somehow weathered the worst of the storm. More will come, of course, but she can’t help but be impressed by how much still stands. It certainly looks good considering the situation. It was one of the lucky cities, one of the cities without a source point.

A sickly orange glow settles over the city as night falls. The warm-colored palette of sunset permeates through the heavy mist over the city, tinting the whole skyline. It looks like a warzone. Maybe it still is.

The empty streets mold to her touch. She reaches out with her power across city blocks and it digs in with tooth and nail, bending the space to her will. She passes through the liminal space that forms with ease. At least traveling’s been a lot simpler since everything went to hell.

It’s hard to believe this is the first time she’s been by in a year. Vista can recall when everything first went tits-up, when her team was scattered across the country, that this place almost felt like a home. It was close and it had Weld, at least. That had been familiar.

She’d squeezed some stupid stuffed rabbit every night for the first month after the disaster. Everyone had been afraid, she wasn’t ashamed to admit that much. Vista idly wondered if the rabbit was still hanging around, tossed in some corner of an abandoned Wards barrack.

Probably not.

It wasn’t long after those scary, lonely nights Vista found herself on the road again. Ever since then, though, she’d traveled on her own terms. No more government drafts or emergency relocations. No more Weld stepping in on her behalf to reassign her.

Ironic, to find herself waiting on Weld again in the muggy streets of downtown Boston. A lot has changed since those days.

Something catches her eyes as she walks though. A clothing boutique, the tacky kind Vista used to shop from back when she’d first joined the Wards. Faded signs promise blowout sales and barrels of confidence, all with a single purchase.

The door is swinging off its hinges, squealing with age and wear, like its bones were broken years ago and they only just set. There are bloody handprints on the door. Despite their shape, they’re not human ones.

Her heart pounds in her ears. Countless nights she’s spent camping under the stars, listening to the whistle of the night breeze through towering cornfields and over pulverized prairies. A part of her is always listening for that telltale growl, the groan of moldering bones and desiccating muscle.

It’s harder here in the city. Even without all the people, there’s still a background thrum to the air. She steps inside the store gingerly, wary of an ambush. She draws her trusty bat in the next second, slinging it over her shoulder to grip it in two hands. The air is quiet, except for the ambient creak of cars in the sun behind her.

Something rustles over by the girls’ graphic tees and she begins to creep over, quiet as possible. Broken glass crunches underfoot nonetheless.

A long time ago, maybe in a different life entirely, she wanted a Bad Canary shirt. It was never her style, musically, but one of the Wards was always playing her songs in the common room. Maybe it was Dean who liked her.

The shirts here are faded, musty, left to cook on the racks for a couple years. The sharp colors of the album cover aren’t quite so eye-searing anymore, and the sultry look on Mcabee’s face looks a little silly. Or maybe Vista is just jaded.

The rumbling snarl grows louder in the girls’ section. Vista moves slowly, carefully now. She’s heard stories of urban explorers who took a bite to the leg from the most oblique angles. It wouldn’t be unheard of for one of the buggers to get stuck in a shirt rack either, hidden from sight until it’s too late.

She gives the racks and the tables a wide enough berth, helped a bit by her power. The bat hangs a bit looser in her hands now. She has to focus.

One of the spinning clothing displays shudders in place. Vista’s eyes snap over to it as it jerks a second time. It’s certainly tall enough to hide a body. She reaches out with her bat to nudge the gaudy t-shirts aside.

A mottled gray hand shoots out. It wraps around the end of her weapon with long fingers. Dead fingers.

The zombie in the display struggles to get free. It might have been a kid her age, once, scared and confused. Maybe he’d hidden behind the shirts to avoid the relentless swarms of undead. Whatever the case, it hadn’t saved him. He got turned, thrashed and fought, and met the same fate in the end.

Vista tugs her bat free and winds up to smack him. The zombie wrestles another hand out of the tangle of clothes to grab for her. She dissuades him of that by dashing his arms with the bat. The crack echoes through the store.

As Vista watches, the zombie’s arms snap back into place. She can see its ragged nails up close, its bony wrists and uncalloused hands. Those hands begin to tear at the obstructive rack with a renewed vigor.

 _Shit_. It’s one of the special ones.

It was a harsh reality check, early on, to learn that even capes weren’t above the seething hordes of zombies. People accepted it pretty quickly though, especially when the Protectorate forces mustered to face the threat began to crumble.

It was when those forces turned on them, bounding and flying and crawling forth with the same powers they’d wielded while alive, that people began to really lose hope.

Vista rams her bat into the zombie’s face hard enough to turn its nose inward. It slumps back against the clothes, but it doesn’t stay down for long. Normal dead-heads are hard enough to kill, and this one can heal.

She scrambles back as the zombie pulls itself free of the clothes. It moves jerkily, unsteady even for a walking corpse. Atrophied muscles, she’s willing to bet, and maybe an untended bite wound. It’s enough of a breather to take a few steps back and size up her opponent.

The zombie’s head lolls as he finds his feet, milky eyes darting around in search of movement. Its body seizes like a fresh corpse, a lot of zombies do, but there’s a slight blur that follows the twitches. Its powers.

When he charges, Vista intercepts it with a swing of her baseball bat. Two pounds of polished wood crash into the side of its head and knock the creature off its course.

Any human would be dead from a hit like that. The zombie stumbles, falls to its knees, and keeps coming. With each bout of twitches, its wounds disappear. Those rotten hands grope toward her face.

Vista doesn’t even give the zombie time to close the distance, she just tugs on the well of her power. She yanks the floor upward and finds herself pushed out of reach. She focuses to create as much space as she can inside the cramped store.

The zombie’s pursuit turns into a scrabbling climb as the incline between them grows. She was maybe three feet away when she first hit the thing. Now that distance feels more like ten or twenty feet, all uphill.

Her attacker quickly begins to lose momentum as it slides down the slope she forms. It tumbles like a ragdoll, crashing through clothing racks and bargain bins to land in a heap on the checkout counter at the back of the store.

Vista tosses her bat after it. It rebounds off the zombie’s head, and this time it doesn’t get up. 

She trots down to retrieve her weapon, tucking it into a strap on her backpack. It took time to find something that suits her, a weapon that sings as she breaks the bodies and bones of the walking dead. Shovels are heavy, and not a tool she has any particular need for. The same goes for axes.

There’s something about a bat that suits her nicely though. It’s something people take lightly, think of as a toy, until the business end of it meets their jaw.

Dean was a baseball person. Dennis was too, on the days he could be pried away from his latest obsession. Now they’re both dashed to pieces, and Vista is stuck crushing zombie skulls in purgatory.

“Missy,” a familiar voice rumbles from behind her. “God, I almost didn’t recognize you. You’ve grown up so much.”

“I just go by Vista now, actually.” She turns to face him, rolling her eyes as she does. “And don’t patronize me, Weld, I’m not here for a pep talk.”

He doesn’t age, but he looks older since she last saw him. The burnished gleam of his skin is a little duller, the edges of his expression a little sharper. That expression is still the same, though, serious but kind with a hint of concern.

“I’m not the one to give it,” Weld says. “Seriously, though, you’re almost up to my shoulder now. And have you been working out? You’re looking stronger than ever.”

Vista lets herself smile. She has shot up in the past year or so. Finding a new pair of pants was the worst part of it all. Department stores don’t exactly carry inventories these days. She had to get by in gym shorts for a couple weeks.

Now she finally feels like she’s growing into herself. The muscles on her arms stand out for the first time in her life, her hair’s darkened from that babyish yellow to a dirty blonde, and she can actually grin without her teeth sticking out like a little kid’s.

“Well, you know, you need some oomph if you’re out there knocking skulls like me,” she comments, preening a bit. She pats the baseball bat jammed down the cupholder of her bag. “This bad boy doesn’t swing himself.”

“Good to hear you haven’t changed at all,” chuckles Weld. “It’s great to see you, Vista.”

“You’re a sight for sore eyes too, Weld.” She swings her bag back up to give him a sideways hug. “You sure these streets are safe?”

“I hope so, considering this is my beat,” he replies. “We’ve had decent luck keeping this city clean, even since you left.”

He gestures down the street he came from, and they start heading to his base. His team’s base. It’s good for him, that he has a group. Personally, Vista can’t imagine the struggle of dealing with _people_ right now.

“You don’t have to flatter me, I know you guys have done good work without me,” Vista reassures him. She punches his shoulder, eliciting a hollow ring. “I just wasn’t willing to commit myself to the place. You get that.”

“Yeah, of course I get that, Vista. Nothing’s been the same since Brockton.”

 _We were kids back then_ , Vista wants to say, but she doesn’t. Weld was practically an adult even then, still older than she is now. It would sound...presumptuous, and that’s not the foot she wants to start this on.

“There’s been some hard years,” she finally says.

“I bet you’ve seen a lot, since then,” Weld says quietly.

Vista’s not sure how to interpret that. In a sense, she has. She’s probably seen more of the country than her parents by now, just wandering around and kneading the earth like dough as she does. But that’s not what Weld is referring to of course. He means _them_ , and what she’s had to do to survive.

“Let’s not beat around the bush, Weld, we all have to kill zombies,” she blurts out. Weld raises an eyebrow at the outburst. Vista elects to bluster forward anyway. “Don’t look at me like that, you know I’m right. I see the bodies stacked outside the city limits. It’s part of our world, now, let’s just accept it.”

“How is it, then, on the road?” Weld asks. “I mean, you have to kill a lot of zombies, as you put it. How’s it looking out there? We’ve been pretty lucky in that regard. Mostly just picking off stragglers.”

“Same here,” Vista replies cautiously. “I don’t run into a lot of hordes. Haven’t since the early days.”

“We had a couple, a bit after you left. Most of them were manageable. Some, not so much. We took some losses.”

“None of the Wards, I hope?” she asks. “You had a good crew.”

“Still do. But we lost Reynard. That was probably the biggest blow.” Weld sighs. “We’ve had to make some compromises, Vista. Relaxing on things we used to stand for. On people we used to stand against.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.”

“You won’t like it, period, unfortunately,” replies Weld. “We’ve had to work with—wait.”

She turns on her heel and waits on him. Like she’s waited on him before, like she waited on his orders in Brockton as the city was swallowed whole by the tide of corpses.

There aren’t many people left in the world that she’s willing to wait on, but she’s feeling alone and she’s feeling sentimental so she waits. And as she waits, she steels herself, so she can resist the urge to react to what Weld says next.

“We’ve had to compromise with Accord, Vista. Not just on territory either, on a bunch of different things.” Weld rubs the steely knots of his temples. “I knew you wouldn’t like it. It’s why I didn’t push for you to come back in spring.”

Vista’s heart clenches in her chest. She never thought they’d win the little war between heroes and villains. Especially once the prophecy got out, once they all knew that doom was crouched, cruelly cackling, right around the corner.

Nobody expected those sides to dissolve completely though. For some of those monsters to be lauded as heroes, to make treaties, to insinuate themselves into the fledgeling new world. It hurts Vista more than she can put to words to hear the news.

She swallows that shock as quickly as it comes up. It tastes like bile in her mouth.

“You’re right,” she begins slowly, “I don’t like that at all. I don’t like what it means for us, Weld. Us as a species or us as in...the two of us. As heroes, as people who have to keep up the good fight.”

“I’ve had those same thoughts,” Weld says. “I never sleep, just patrol through the night and think about the ways this could all go wrong. Or maybe it has all gone wrong, and I’m just an idiot sticking to a script that got thrown out the window a long time ago.”

“If you’re an idiot, then I’m an idiot too,” counters Vista. “Two years on and I’m still scouring half the country for some fragment of hope. But honestly, the more I see, the more I get the full picture. Truth, justice, the American way, it’s all dead now. It’s just a shuffling corpse like the rest of them.”

“We’re both idiots, then,” Weld agrees. “Two idiots hoping against hope. Me, hoping that the noose I’m tying won’t strangle me. And you...”

“Just hoping, for now, that my house is still standing,” Vista answers, her voice quiet.

Weld smiles down at her, and Vista finds that whole year’s worth of missing him rushing back all at once. It hits her like a punch to the chest. Family, friends, people worth fighting for. Vista almost stumbles over her own two feet, despite her usual composure.

“Vista?” Weld asks. “Are you alright?”

Boston isn’t hers. It was a getaway after everything that happened in Brockton Bay, a safe space even today. But it’s not hers anymore than the Boston Wards were her team. It wasn’t before Accord brought the city to heel, and it certainly isn’t now under his dominion. Vista has to get back home.

“I want to talk to him,” Vista says. “To the villains, to Accord. I want to find a way into Brockton.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're in a pandemic, this was bound to happen eventually. Beyond that, I find myself wishing more and more that I was a kid again. Maybe this isn't the best point in history for it, but there's a joy to that freedom and open-mindedness that escapes me now that I'm old and getting older. Consider this dumb superhero apocalypse fanfic a love letter to those feelings. It's never too late to fall in love with the world again.


	2. The only thing worth having

Vista looks out over the husk of Los Angeles and sees the face of death itself.

Its eyes are the glitter and gleam of armored corpses in the sky. Mere months ago, she saw them fight and fall like shooting stars on a television screen from Boston. Now they’re airborne again. They’re on the hunt.

Death’s ears and nose are the bodies that stream through desolate streets and ruined buildings below her. New York and Texas got all the early coverage because of the disastrous early clashes. So many forgot the desperate battles that unfolded across countless other cities. Maybe at least the dead can remember, with their broken bones and leaking wounds. They certainly remember the taste of flesh.

Of course the mouth of death is the PRT headquarters. It’s the epicenter of these teeming masses, coughing and burping and vomiting out the packs of dead men that prowl below.

Vista isn’t really sure why this is the source, but she has some idea of what she’d find inside that cursed fortress. Twisted knots of hallways that turn into ominous corridors, and deathly white walls, and more hordes than she could ever imagine.

She’s caught glimpses before, in other major cities. It’s not what she’s here for.

All she needs is a face. A broken mask, a shock of hair, anything that’s a hint of the familiar. She’s tracked down Dennis in Texas, fended off those mischievous hands that were already rotten and grayed. She found Sophia over in Vegas, happy as a murderous clam.

At this point she’s not sure who she’s looking for. Maybe Chris is still alive, puttering around on his little hoverboard. Maybe some of her classmates from back home, even.

She finds a bogeyman instead.

It appears from the far side of the city, near the coast, a tiny speck bounding through the streets. Vista retreats slowly at first, then with more haste as the flea closes the distance.

A flash of shredded black fabric. A leap that hurls her pursuer up and through an office building. Could it be? There’s no way. But whoever they were, they’re inexorable, unrelenting, inevitable.

Vista grasps for her power in a panic and drags herself out of that burning mess of a city. As she runs, she whispers a mantra to herself that has long since lost any meaning to her.

_ Richard Biron. Ellen Biron. Chris Davis. Kathy Peterson. Lauren Haynes. Sophia Hess… _

She’s still reciting what names she can remember when she touches down in Portland.

🕶️🕶️🕶️

Accord’s encampment squats over the ruins of a college campus. He’s taken up residence in an administrative building, a retreat that towers above hollowed out dormitories and empty dining centers. Woven between these buildings is a myriad of traps, barricades, and assorted defenses. Vista senses them all, of course, and she scoffs at them. They wouldn’t withstand a real horde, those rolling tides of gray that drown entire cities. They could certainly keep out unwanted guests though.

“I can say he’s mellowed out since the old days, if that does anything to help your conscience,” Weld offers. He feels bad. Whether it’s about what’s become of his city or what’s become of the two of them, she’s not entirely sure.

“He’s the cat that ate the canary, Weld, why wouldn't he be happy?” Vista scowls. “This negotiation is going to be a pain in the ass.”

“It’s probably best not to go into this thinking of it as a negotiation,” says Weld. “He’s got a lot of leverage and I’m guessing you don’t want to put everything on the line here.”

They stand outside the building. The clouds above them pucker like a nasty wound, ready to ooze out a purulent payload of cold rain and gloomy darkness. The very air in Boston feels sick. Maybe it’s weather-altering tinker tech pieced together by some enterprising survivor, maybe it’s just the steady tick of nature toward erosion. Maybe those are the same thing, on a philosophical level.

It nettles her that a villain as petty and cruel as Accord has wormed his way into the city. The city’s defenses are his, the infrastructure is his, even the vestiges of political levers have fallen into his clutches according to Weld. The heroes, the regular people, they’re left hanging by a thread.

Vista’s hardly an expert on the politics of the apocalypse. She holds no illusions of what change she could even make here. She just burns with quiet anger at the injustice of it all. It’s a comfortably familiar sensation in the face of this new threat.

“What does he have on me?” asks Vista, hands jammed into her pockets to keep from fidgeting. “What’s he going to do to me, exactly? Kill me, turn me? When you list out the options, he doesn’t sound much worse than one of the dead-heads.”

At least she can knock the brains out of a zombie. She doesn’t argue that point to Weld though.

“I’m trusting your judgment here,” Weld replies. He crosses his arms and juts a chin at the reinforced glass doors before them. “But when you go through those doors, I can’t have your back anymore. Not in the same way at least.”

“I’m just going to talk to him.” Vista draws a long breath. “I just need safe passage into the city.”

She slips off her sunglasses, squinting into the firebomb of a sunset to pass them to Weld. Her backpack follows, along with her trusty bat. It’s the sixth she’s gone through this year, but no less precious than the previous five.

Every weapon, tool, and hardfought luxury she owns fits into the bag. Her shoulders feel lighter without all the gear. It’s not a good feeling, though, more like she’s lost a bit of her anchor to the earth.

Vista enters the building.

It’s cool inside, like the huffed breath of an opening refrigerator. A breeze teases Vista’s hastily tidied hair, setting her nerves on edge. It takes her a few seconds to recognize the feeling of an air-conditioned room.

She isn’t given time to dwell on it. Two figures appear from a stairwell at the end of the room and make their way over. As they approach, Vista notes that their clothes are as clean and stiff as the air inside. The man wears a drab olive-green suit, and the woman wears a lustrous yellow dress that looks light as a feather.

It’s not just the getup, but they look out of place to Vista’s hawlike gaze. She studies faces a lot these days, the living and the dead alike. People wear a lot on their faces; thin mouths, tired eyes, sunken cheeks. This pair looks almost cartoonish in comparison with their plump lips and made up faces.

This is why she hates them. They’re not the only selfish and vain pricks in the world, far from it, but they wear it with pride. There’s something wrong with that to Vista.

“I’m here to meet Accord,” she tells the guards.

“You are scheduled for an audience within the hour,” the man in green replies.

“Before you may meet Accord, you must make yourself presentable,” the woman in yellow adds. “Come with me. I’d be happy to show you to our fully-restored facilities in the guest suite.”

“I’m ready to meet him now,” Vista insists.

“That may very well be true,” says the man in green. “However, protocol exists for a reason. These protocols in particular maintain the orderliness and safety of Accord’s community.”

Vista glares at him. “That’s what all protocols do. Congrats, you just defined the fucking word. I don’t care, I don’t need to be hosed off like a stray dog.”

The woman in yellow hides a dainty laugh behind a dainty gloved hand. She rests her other hand on Vista’s shoulder.

“You have spirit in you. I think Accord will appreciate such a spark.” Her smile is eerie in its dazzling brightness. “Now come with me, dear. It’s perfectly safe. In fact, I promise you’ll emerge from the experience looking  _ less _ gray, not more.”

Without much of a choice, Vista finds herself dragged along by her escort. She shoots a dirty look back at the man.

She has to admit, however grudgingly, that the bathrooms in Accord’s headquarters are nice. The water comes out hot from the tap, a rare enough feat, and she discovers a diverse array of scented soaps and shampoos in a cabinet. Vista idly wonders if the collection belongs to Accord himself or his stunning, flaxen-haired assistant. Maybe it’s a shared interest.

The jokes aren’t new. Sometimes it’s the only way to stay sane, dodging zombies or angry survivors for days on end. The mind numbing feeling of comfort is more concerning though. It’s rare that she has the time to relax.

She counts her scars in the foggy mirror. There’s a lot more than she remembers. Some are small like the cuts and scrapes that dot her arms and legs. Others are expansive, etching out patterns and swallowing whole swathes of pale skin.

She’s named a few of them, passing on some of the only names she can recall at this point. A nasty scratch from a piece of rebar is Sophia. The graze from a panicked gunshot is Chris. Call it morbid, but it’s something to pass the time. It makes her diatribes to the empty air feel a little less meaningless.

Sometimes Vista imagines telling the story of a scar to its namesake. Would Sophia call her clumsy or stupid? Would Chris fumble through consolations? Or would they both fix her with that look of uncomfortable concern?

It would never happen anyway.

Vista deposits her fluffy white towel on a hook near the door and reaches for her clothes. They’re gone,  _ naturally _ , replaced by a slim black box. She knows what’s inside before she even opens it.

She dresses in Accord’s stupid outfit anyway. It’s not as classy as the woman’s lemony-golden gown, to her relief. It’s more of a sundress, clearly designed for someone closer to Vista’s age, all lime-green and floral print. It fits her perfectly of course. Vista hates the colors and the cut, she hates the tickle of an air-conditioned hem against her bare legs, and she hates the way it hangs off her body most of all.

The voice of a Youth Guard rep echoes in her ears. She hated those pricks too. They were always lecturing her about her posture or her body language or something she was doing wrong. None of them cared about who she was, beneath the shoulderpads and the costume. None of them even cared about their mission.

But Weld was right. This isn’t a negotiation. Accord will have no qualms about using her, and the only goal they share is a selfish struggle for survival.

The door opens behind her. Vista settles the hairband into place above her ears and turns to face the assistant.

“Isn’t that so much better? You look like a real girl now,” the woman says with a smile.

Vista sets her jaw and follows in silence.

🕶️🕶️🕶️

The office swirls with the off-white perfume of cleaning chemicals and incense. Bookshelves wallpaper the whole space, sizing the room down to something that borders coziness. It’s all illusion of course, ballistae or miniguns stuffed into every nook and cranny, but it’s a convincing illusion.

“My dear, you look nervous. Come closer, would you? The lighting is far more flattering over here. It’s quite perfect for friendly conversation with a traveler.”

Vista finds herself complying, stiff limbs moving like gears to take a seat in the chair across from him. She smooths down her dress as she sits, crossing her legs and cursing the man who has taken control of the city.

She doesn’t trust the new Accord in front of her. She doesn’t trust the carnivorous curl she hears in his tongue when he says  _ conversation _ . To her, conversation is a rare commodity. To Accord, conversation is a weapon, insidious and far-reaching, like the noose Weld mentioned around his neck.

Accord tugs back the cuffs of his navy blazer, filling two teacups with a boiling brew. Vista accepts the proffered drink despite herself. Accord smirks at the small victory, just out of the corner of her eye. The tea goes down like grass clippings, bitter and sharp.

“My associates inform me that it is your intention to visit Brockton Bay,” Accord says.

“That’s right,” Vista replies. She meets his eyes, baby blue locking on to a hazy dark amber. “I heard you’re in contact with the survivors.”

Not many capes wear masks these days. Not many capes wear costumes at all, beyond maybe a badge or memento from the old days. The ones that do have reason to. They make enemies and they burn bridges, despite any rhyme or reason of the apocalypse.

Accord is one of those capes. His mask hugs his head like a barnacle, all sharp angles and tight slits that puzzle together into a monstrous face. That jigsawed face reorients into a dispassionate smile.

“Indeed, I reached out to Tattletale soon after the events of nine months ago.” One digit at a time, he steeples his hands. His thumbs circle each other below, like sharks in the water. “I am curious, so I hope you can forgive me for indulging myself. What is your goal once you reach the city? Do you intend to rebuild it?”

“I’m not stupid,” she says through grit teeth.

“I’m not stupid,  _ sir _ .”

“I’m not stupid, sir,” repeats Vista. “I know that’s an unreasonable expectation. I just want to canvas the city for survivors.”

“Ah, you are invested for personal reasons,” Accord chuckles. “I must say, I receive this news with some disappointment. I am told you were quite the hero in the times before our current circumstances.”

“You heard right, sir,” Vista says. “I’d like to think I still am, despite the circumstances.”

“Circumstances are merely a facade that the world wears. The truth of the matter remains unchanged beneath it all,” comes the self-satisfied response. He drums his fingers against the armrest of his chair. “Truthfully, your primary goal is to find your lost loved ones. Is that correct?” 

Vista doesn’t rise to the bait. She simply nods, the briefest dip of her head that knocks a lock of hair awry. Accord looks up at her, face morphing into disappointment, or perhaps annoyance.

“I require heroes,  _ Vista _ , for purposes far beyond any petty concerns of personal gain. Humanity itself lies broken over the knee of calamity. Even now, savage predators lurk in the corners of the world, waiting to finish the job. It is only through concerted effort and self-sacrifice that we as a species can restore some semblance of order.”

“So, the tables have turned. You’re the hero now?” Vista asks.

“To call that an oversimplification would be crass,” Accord sniffs. “I seek to advance the progress of my species, as I always have.”

“How exactly do you save the species from a college campus in Boston?”

Accord’s mask whirs with activity, switching from anger to disdain to a slight grimace. He shuffles off his chair to face the window and bask in the last rays of sunlight like a cat. A petty, domineering cat.

“There was a time when the world was large, Vista. The future was dark, but it was carefully secured. Our best and brightest were determined to maintain this balancing act. Those times have changed, whatever the catalyst was. Those greater powers are no longer a consideration.”

“Why do you sound pleased as punch about that?”

The villain doesn’t respond to her question. Vista sips her tea in the lapse of conversation, feeling the warmth spread through her like a heavy fog. It’s not cold enough outside to be dangerous, not yet, but there’s comfort in a hot drink that’s hard to come by these days.

“The world is in need of direction once again, and as fate would have it, I sit in a position to guide its course,” Accord finally says. He returns to his desk to withdraw a sheaf of papers which he rifles through with a practiced precision. “Tattletale is a chaotic element, but she acquires data more efficiently than I can obtain it. I intend to offer an exchange of information, a proposal you stand to gain from.”

“You’re still talking to me, so I assume you need my help,” Vista interjects.

“While I certainly would benefit from a girl of your talents, it seems my goals do not align with yours,” replies Accord. “I require subordinates who will prioritize the amelioration of society; those with selfish ambitions fall outside my...stringent specifications.”

“I’m not just going to take the money and run,” Vista grits out. She pins her hands beneath her thighs to stop them shaking. “Of course I’m willing to run your stupid errand.”

“Wonderful. It stands to reason, then, that I am willing to ensure safe passage for your journey to Brockton Bay,” Accord says. He slides the folder across the stretch of mahogany between them. “Indulge me. Do you regard this as some sort of Ulyssean homecoming? Perhaps to one so young as you, it feels more akin to a religious pilgrimage.”

“It feels like I should go now,” Vista answers, “before I say something that I regret.”

She stands, collects the papers, and inclines her head to Accord. She has to clench her fists to refrain from collapsing the building on him.

“It’s only natural to retreat from the hard questions, my dear. Do enjoy your trip.”

She doesn’t look back as she leaves.

🕶️🕶️🕶️

Weld takes her back to his base and introduces her to the team. They talk, they laugh, and they sit in contemplative silence. When night falls, Weld slips out to begin his next patro.

Vista falls asleep in the fluttering shadows of a campfire. As the world dissolves to black and gray, she remembers that figure that she spotted in Los Angeles.

Accord is wrong. The roles haven’t changed, they’ve fallen apart. No one gets to claim the title of hero anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> A big thank you to The Sleeping Knight and tackeart for supporting this fic from the jump. Without them, it would be Frankenstein's monster, lopsided and labor-intensive and probably languishing in a trash bin. Thanks to these beautiful souls, I've managed to maintain some control over this beast. Much love!


End file.
